This new edition gives students, research managers, policy analysts, and applied researchers clear, easy-to-understand guidance on designing qualitative research. While maintaining a focus on the proposal stage, this best-selling book takes readers from selecting a research genre through building a conceptual framework, data collection and interpretation, and arguing the merits of the proposal. Extended discussions cover strategies that researchers can use to address the challenges posed by postmodernists, feminists, and critical race theorists, as well as others who interrogate historical qualitative inquiry. The book also includes thoughtful discussion on trustworthiness and ethics, in addition to dealing with time, resource, and political stressors inherent to the research process. Throughout the book, the authors emphasize the importance of being systematic but also inspire readers with potential "Aha!" moments and opportunities to do research in close connection with people and communities.
New to this edition:
Contemporary issues, methods, and considerations that have emerged in the last few years include discussions on arts-informed inquiry, multimodal inquiry, critical dis course analysis, case studies, grounded theory, autoethnography, and examples of the bur geoning use of social media and various computer and Web-based applications.
New questions explore the issues and design dilemmas of today's qualitative researchers.
New vignettes cover such topics as researchers' challenges in designing research with homeless, refugee, and immigrant populations; the interplay between ethics and trustworthiness; and exquisite sensitivity in research on sexual harassment.
Suggestions for planning for data analysis at the proposal stage and for managing analysis in writing final reports have been added.
A new Dialogue Between Authors section in every chapter depicts how the authors' experiences in teaching and advising have informed the development of the new edition.
New and revised Dialogue Between Learners sections feature the exchange of thoughts and ideas of two novice qualitative researchers.
The new Some of Our Favorites listing at the end of each chapter's Further Reading section provides recommended references for further exploration.
The advances and challenges presented by new technologies and provocative, creative modes of presentation are incorporated throughout.
Author Biography:
Catherine Marshall is the William Eaves Distinguished Professor Emerita of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After completing her PhD, she served on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania and at Vanderbilt University before settling as professor at North Carolina. The ongoing goal of her teaching and research has been to use an interdisciplinary approach to analyze the cultures of schools, state policy cultures, gender issues, and social justice issues. She has published extensively on the politics of education, qualitative methodology, women's access to careers, and socialization, language, and values in educational administration.
Marshall's honors include the Campbell Award for Lifetime Intellectual Contributions to the Field, given by the Politics of Education Association (2009); the University Council for Educational Administration's Campbell Award for Lifetime Achievement and Contributions to Educational Administration (2008); the American Educational Research Association's (AERA) Willystine Goodsell Award for her scholarship, activism, and community building on behalf of women and education (2004); and a Ford Foundation grant for Social Justice Leadership (2002). In the American Educational Association, she was elected to head the Politics and Policy Division, and she also created an AERA Special Interest Group called Leadership for Social Justice.
Marshall is the author or editor of numerous other books. These include Activist Educators: Breaking Past Limits; Culture and Education Policy in the American States; The Assistant Principal: Leadership Choices and Challenges; The New Politics of Gender and Race; and Feminist Critical Policy Analysis. This book's origin came early in her scholarly career, while conducting qualitative research on policy and teaching literally hundreds of doctoral students how to adopt and adapt the qualitative approach into workable proposals. She recognized a need and began to develop this book.
Gretchen B. Rossman is Professor Emerita of International Education and the Center for International Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She received her PhD in education from the University of Pennsylvania, with a specialization in higher-education administration. She has served as a visiting professor at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. Prior to coming to the University of Massachusetts, she was senior research associate at Research for Better Schools in Philadelphia. With an international reputation as a qualitative methodologist, she has expertise in qualitative research design and methods, mixed-methods monitoring and evaluation, and inquiry in education. Over the past 30+ years, she has coauthored 15 books, 2 of which are editions of major qualitative research texts (Learning in the Field, third edition, with Sharon F. Rallis, and the present seventh edition of Designing Qualitative Research, with Catherine Marshall and Gerardo L. Blanco-both widely used guides for qualitative inquiry). In addition, she has published a book titled The Research Journey: An Introduction to Inquiry (with Sharon Rallis). She has also authored or coauthored more than 50 articles, book chapters, and technical reports focused on methodological issues in qualitative research synthesis, mixed-methods evaluation, and ethical research practice, as well as the analysis and evaluation of educational reform efforts both in the United States and internationally.
Professor Rossman has served as principal investigator (PI) or co-PI on several large U.S. Agency for International Development-funded projects (in Palestine, the Southern Sudan, Malawi, Tanzania, and India); as co-PI on a World Bank-funded multigrade schooling project (Senegal and Gambia); as lead trainer for a Save the Children-funded participatory monitoring and evaluation of professional training (Azerbaijan); and as external evaluator on several domestic projects, including a Department of Education-funded reform initiative, a National Science Foundation-funded middle-grades science initiative, and a number of projects implementing more inclusive practices for students with disabilities.
